It was a blunt and grimly realistic appraisal, but also hinted that the Army had the means to resolve this crisis if it could get permission to use it. Manstein knew exactly where he could find that strong force, in the nine panzer Divisions presently refitting in three separate Korps along the Northern Front. He knew that asking for those troops directly would get him nowhere, but he would have been remiss if he did not suggest this option for OKWs consideration. Keitel and Jodl would certainly support it, but Hitler was again the great obstacle.
And so, 1942 would close with Armeegruppe South having cleared the Donets Basin, taking Rostov, establishing a strong foothold in the north Kuban region, and driving all the way to the Volga to make the linkup with Volkov’s troops. Armeegruppe Center still had both Moscow and Voronezh, pyrrhic victories owed only to the stubborn implacable will of Adolf Hitler. It would be some time before the Führer would answer that cable, and by then it would be 1943.
* * *
For Zhukov, supply was now becoming a critical factor for his forward units. Kursk was the new logistical center for the northern Group, but all the rail lines leading into that city had been badly torn up by the fighting, and would take weeks to repair, possibly months. With no direct rail connection, and few good roads, that arm of the Bear had been stopped by Hitler’s damnable SS divisions. They had also thrown up a steel wall all along the line of the Oskol River, their defense so determined that he could find no way to try and move more divisions across the river. He still had three tank corps in reserve, and reluctantly ordered them back to the railheads east of the Don for deployment elsewhere.
The enemy had reestablished contact with the Voronezh pocket, though he was surprised that no effort was now being made to extract those troops from the dangerous position he had forced upon them. It was now clear to him that Kharkov was not an attainable objective, and he reported as much to Sergei Kirov.
“We have more than adequate force at hand, but keeping them moving and fighting is an equally big problem. Supply deliveries to the front are now down to 50% of normal, and in the Kuban no more than 10%. I would therefore suggest that we now redeploy to build up forces along the line of the Oka for a drive west. It may yet be possible to take either Kirov or Bryansk back, and such a drive would also threaten communications to the enemy position at Moscow, and possibly force them to commit troops they are presently rebuilding for any planned offensive against Leningrad.”
“And Voronezh?”
“Let them have it if they want it,” said Zhukov. “That cauldron we have Model in will be nothing more than a witch’s brew of torment for that army. I will keep pressure on it, but make no effort to liquidate it just yet. What was it Napoleon said? Ah, never interfere with your enemy when he is busy making a mistake.”
“General Zhukov,” said Kirov. “You have already surprised me greatly with this offensive, and it has certainly caused the enemy much grief. I will therefore authorize any transfer of forces you deem necessary, and yes, if you can get back Bryansk or even Kirov, the boost to morale would be invaluable. I commend you on your generalship, and express every confidence in the planning and execution of these offensives in the time that remains this winter. I will also do everything possible to see to this shortfall of supplies, and will send rail repair crews presently in the Leningrad sector to aid in this.”
That easy cooperation between Kirov and Zhukov would now stand in stark contrast to the adversarial relationship between Hitler and his Generals. Zhukov would take his laurels, but he could not help commenting on that count.
“I thank you, Mister General Secretary, “but I must tell you that the enemy had the means to stop this offensive long ago. They simply refused to use it. Perhaps they saw our attack as intending exactly that, interfering with their plans for the new year spring offensive. That was true in part, but they could have stopped us much sooner, and should have.”
“There is discord at OKW,” said Berzin. “My operatives have even learned that several key officers have considered resigning their positions. Thus far none have had the temerity to directly challenge Hitler, and the Führer has not changed his mind about fighting this winter as he did the last. He has reiterated his stand fast order, and specified that no division, anywhere on the front, should be moved without his permission. It seems more than one German General has been pilfering any available reserves they could find. Hitler, himself, has again assumed overall control of daily battlefield operations, and reduced OKW to the level of mere staff officers.”
“That will be the end of them,” said Kirov, for both he and Berzin knew quite well that this had happened once before. The Material they still had was replete with examples.
“Well then,” said Kirov. “Do as you suggest, General Zhukov, but before you leave, let us drink some good champagne and celebrate this new year. It will be our year, our time to take this war to the enemy in a way he might never expect. We have taught him to beware of General Winter, but this year we must learn how to beat them in the spring and summer as well.”
He raised his glass, watching the bubbles in rising from some unseen point at the bottom and making that jubilant journey to the top. Somehow, this effort had convinced him that the darkest hours of the war might be over, even if they were to lose Volgograd one day soon. They would hold on, and as Fedorov had told him decades ago, they could win.
“Gentlemen,” he said with a smile, “to 1943!”
Chapter 36
A good deal would happen on other fronts in those last months of the year, though we will not have time to visit every chapter of this long war. In the Pacific, October and November saw Yamamoto muster his 1st and 2nd Carrier Divisions at Truk, and proceed to the New Hebrides. He arrived too late to prevent another regiment of US Marines from moving from Samoa to Fiji, and by the time he bulled his way east towards the island, the American carriers had withdrawn.
His thinking continued to be dominated by the need for a decisive engagement with the US Navy but it was not to be in late 1942. With Halsey hospitalized, Nimitz pulled his last two fleet carriers out, waiting for the arrival of the Essex. He knew he could not face the Kido Butai again with only Enterprise and Wasp, and would not risk losing those valuable ships. They played cat and mouse, with small raids against Japanese occupied Wake Island, and the Marshalls. They also provided distant cover for convoys bound for Samoa, slipping away before the Japanese could seek to engage them.
It was a case of ‘pick on someone your own size,’ and the last months of 1942 saw the US intervene in French Polynesia, clearing out the last of the French Navy there, occupying the Society Islands, and taking Tahiti for a distant supply base. It was about 2500 miles from Truk to Fiji, a distance that already strained Japanese fleet units to try and maintain a secure supply line. Tahiti was over 4300 miles from Truk, farther away than Pearl Harbor, and so it was simply too far off to consider bothering, and would become a secure rear area base for the Americans.
With carrier superiority in late 1942, Yamamoto was able to keep his troops on Fiji supplied and reinforced, but the US had enough there to hold their enemy in check. A jungle stalemate resulted, with neither side able to push the other off the island, and Nimitz was soon proposing a different plan altogether to begin taking the war to the enemy. Once he built up carrier strength, he would be ready to fight again, and possibly decide the issue in the South Pacific, but that would happen in 1943.
Essex joined the fleet in late October, but spent the last two months of the war learning how to operate in a fast carrier group. By December, Nimitz would receive a few more Christmas presents. Two more in the class were rushing towards completion, the Bon Homme Richard was renamed Yorktown II, and the Cabot was renamed Lexington II. They would both start sea trials in January, hoping to be ready later in that month. With them would come a family of three children, the first being the escort carrier Independence, and then a pair of twins, two more hybrids that had been rushed to completion after the battle in the New He
brides where Shiloh and Antietam proved their worth.
There had been seven New Orleans Class hulls built out as heavy cruisers, but two more were left in the shipyards as the war broke out. Hull numbers eight and nine, became the Gettysburg and Vicksburg, a concession to the concept of the hybrid scout carrier that could look for enemy forces and allow the fleet carriers to use all their planes in the strike role. They were also seen as possible commerce raiders, and at 36 knots, were fast enough to evade most ships that might outgun them, and harass, or even sink an enemy cruiser with their planes. So when Yamamoto finally did get another chance at taking on the US fleet, it would be much bigger than he imagined.
By January of 1943, there would be five fleet carriers in the Pacific again, one escort carrier and the four hybrids. Against this, Japan would also have her five remaining fleet carriers, and five light carriers. As Yamamoto had feared, the US was building carriers faster than he could sink them. As the new year dawned, there would soon be a relative parity between the two sides again, and the shadow boxing would end. It was time to fight.
* * *
In the west, the first order of business for the British was to establish a garrison in Spain in the event the Germans ever thought to return. With the Canary Islands now secure, most of what was once 110 Force there was pulled out and moved to Spain, along with reserve troops that had been guarding Madeira. They would join the 29th and 36th Brigade Groups, and the 10th Armored Division there. The 6th Armored, and all of 3rd Infantry Division, would move to North Africa to join the 43rd Wessex Division and form Montgomery’s Algerian Corps. It was further augmented with the 33rd and 34th Armored Brigades, one each operating with those two infantry Divisions.
Patton’s sullen prediction that Montgomery would take a month to get ready for operations was overly optimistic. Oran was barely functioning in late October, and Algiers was in even worse shape after it finally fell. So it was not until late November that plans were laid for renewed operations, and another several weeks before all was ready. To be “teed up,” as Monty put things. The rainy season had slowed everything to a crawl.
There was also the matter of Gibraltar to settle with the German garrison there, which had been stolidly holding the place for some months. Yet now that Franco had been removed, Brooke argued that Gibraltar’s importance was now much diminished. “We’ve got the full cooperation of Spain now,” he said. “The Fascists have been rooted out, a new monarchy installed, and now we have access to all those marvelous ports and airfields. Compared to that, the Rock seems like a little mouse hole, and we really don’t need it.”
“Oh but we do,” Churchill wagged a finger at him. “No one picks the Crown’s pocket lightly, or without facing the consequences. The Rock is ours, and we’ll have it back. Allies can be fickle partners. They squabble with you like a wife at times. Yet I suppose that there is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is to fight without them.”
“Yet do you really want to commit troops to what will certainly be a costly attack there?”
“If necessary. If they remain adamant. The better course would be to simply starve them out. We won’t stoop to the level they went when they threatened us with that ghastly business involving gasoline. They’ll get water from the catchments there, but no food. Starve them out, and every week make them the offer of a good banquet in exchange for surrender. You’ll see how soon a man’s resolve withers away when his belly is empty.”
That became the plan, and it was going to work. All of September and October passed, the garrison remaining adamant, in spite of the fact that their food had run out weeks ago. The Germans tried to parachute in supplies, but the RAF shot down the transport planes. They tried to sneak in food on a U-boat, but the Royal Navy sunk it. A few then tried to slip off in a small boat to go fishing, but they were seen and strafed until they fled back to the shore. Every week, Churchill would quietly inquire as to the status of the situation. On November 15th, he ordered the troops investing the place to fire up open air barbecue pits so the smell of roasting beef would waft over the whole place. Three days later, having gone for over five weeks without food, the Garrison accepted terms for an honorable surrender. The British replied that would be granted only if the tunnels and passages were not subjected to any demolition.
It was just one more thing for Hitler to rage about, but by then he had much more to worry about in Russia. Churchill had the Rock back, quietly informing a certain Elena Fairchild of that when it finally happened. He summoned her and Captain MacRae to a private meeting in the Cabinet War Rooms beneath the Treasury Building near Whitehall.
“Miss Fairchild,” he said, greeting her warmly. “I have heard a good deal about you, and your marvelous ship—our ship, though it is still quite a leap for me to realize it won’t be built for decades.”
“And an equal jump for me to wake up each morning and still find myself here.”
“Captain, that was a fine job you did in the Raid on St. Nazaire, and not a single ship was lost in the convoys escorted by your destroyer. I only wish we had ten more like this Argos Fire. Then we could really put the fire to Doenitz and his damnable wolfpacks. Now, I understand that you have made a little delivery to the Isle of Man.”
“Aye sir,” said Gordon. “All safe and sound.”
“That was all that remained of this Brigade that served us so well in the desert?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Elena.
“Well, we can’t risk losing any more of that equipment in combat—not until we’ve had a good long look at it.”
“I wish I could say that would help you,” said MacRae, “but most of what you’ll see there could not be replicated in any way at this time. Those vehicles run with highly specialized computers. The art of miniaturizing components used in their design and construction won’t be available until the 1980s and 90s. You’ll get some good ideas, particularly if you look over the Challengers, but they utilize exotic materials you will not be able to replicate. As to the computers, I strongly suggest you don’t even touch them.”
“Good ideas will have to do for the moment,” said Churchill. “Yet I summoned you here to discuss something else. It seems you had business with one of our battleships?” He gave Elena a knowing glance.
“I did, sir, though it took me a while to realize that. There was an artifact aboard that was of some interest.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the story. The Selene Horse…. To think it had that key hidden away like that, and nobody knew it. There it was, sitting in the British Museum for decades, before we crated the Elgin Marbles up and moved them to the tube during the Blitz. I’m not quite sure who had the bright idea to ship them off to the Yanks with all that gold, but the outcome of that little venture was most unfortunate. These keys… What might they open?”
“One sent my ship here,” said Elena. “We have a second, delivered by the late Admiral Volsky, a gift from his young Captain.”
“Ah, yes, that young man Fedorov—a most enterprising soul. He had such a key?”
“Apparently, though we aren’t certain how he may have come by it, or when.”
“Might it serve like the other—the one that brought your ship here?”
“We aren’t certain of that either. But on my ship I have a box that seems designed to hold these keys for safekeeping.”
“A box?”
“We found it at Delphi… This is a long story, but you might as well hear it.” Elena then related the tale of how the Argos Fire had come there, but left off the part about the Watch, Tovey, and a few other details.”
“My word,” said Churchill. “Someone has a fancy for tucking away little surprises in the remains of ancient Greece monuments.”
“And perhaps in other places.” Elena threw that out like a bridge player leading into a long suit, and Churchill was quick to answer.
“Other places? Well you may be pleased to learn that the Germans have finally given up Gibraltar. We starved the jackals out
! Now then, I understand this key that was oddly packed away on the Rodney had something to do with Saint Michael’s Cave.”
“So we believe, sir. If the place is secure, I think we’d better have a good close look. I have men for the job, very reliable.”
“Any idea what you expect to find?”
“A door. That what keys mostly open, when they aren’t mated to magic boxes. The one I was given got me through that door beneath Delphi, and we now think there is something in Saint Michael’s Cave that needs close inspection.”
“Yet you haven’t the key to open such a door, assuming one exists. Hasn’t it gone down with Rodney? Or are these all a kind of Skeleton Key that can open many things at once.”
“We don’t know, but we at least have two keys to make a go of it if we do find a door there that needs opening.”
“If neither works? Then what? I can make the services of our artisan engineers available to you. They’ve tunneled out miles of passageways in the rock. This would just be one more.”
“I don’t think I would advise that, sir,” said Elena. “First off, these doors, at least the one I’ve seen, are rather sturdy, made from highly refined metal alloys that were obviously built to keep uninvited people out. No. I think it needs the key. Even demolition charges might not work on such a door.”
“Then we could simply go through the stone to either side,” Churchill suggested.
“Sir,” said Elena. “If your dentist told you it might be a bit of a task to get at the ache that’s been bothering you, would you advise him to drill out the teeth to either side? What I am suggesting is that whatever might be behind such a door should be… well preserved, and safeguarded. I’m afraid demolitions and willy-nilly drilling might be out of the question.”
“I don’t understand. It isn’t likely that we will ever fetch the key that went down with Rodney. It’s full fathom five, or worse by now, with bones of coral made.”
Thor's Anvil (Kirov Series Book 26) Page 31